The Hollywood City Commission unanimously approved the Margaritaville Land Lease at the Jan. 19 City Commission meeting, bringing Hollywood one step closer to containing a $130 million tourist attraction complete with a 349-room hotel, public pools, restaurants and a new parking garage.
Funding for the project, as stated in the 99-year lease agreement, will come from a variety of sources, including the EB-5 Investor Visa Program, a federal program that offers green cards to foreign nationals and their immediate family members to invest in a project that creates a minimum of 10 American jobs. The EB-5 project will consist of $75 million of the project’s funding. Additional funding will come from $10 million in developer equity and a $10 million loan from the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency to be repaid in 10 years at 5 percent interest.
The 300-page lease also sets the foundation for the creation of a Community Development District, an independent board with the sole purpose of raising $30 million for the construction of the public portion of the 1056-space parking garage. Six-hundred spaces will be public.
Developer Lon Tabatchnick will pay the City $20,000 a month during construction, which is scheduled to begin March 1, 2012, according to the lease agreement, and the City will be paid $500,000 a year, with a 3 percent increase annually, once the hotel is operational.
Additionally, the lease states that any changes to the previously approved site plan will require approval from the City Commission through an amendment, giving the City a lot of control over the appearance and layout of the project, said City Attorney Jeffrey Sheffel, who presented the terms of the lease to the City Commissioners.
The Margaritaville Resort is scheduled to open in March 2014.
“I have never worked with a municipality in any state that put forth the effort of working through the evenings, through the weekends, and through vacations to get (a project) right,” Tabatchnick said. “The whole goal was to get it right. This document has to survive 99 years, and we all worked really hard.”
For more information about the terms of the lease, visit the City of Hollywood website at www.hollywoodfl.org.
